circekills

I'm a MASTER. Of Media Studies. Which translates to nothing. I'm probably the only person in the world who spends a decade to earn a two year degree.

But I have it now!

And I got it with my parents and boyfriend watching, and we celebrated dinner at Lure with my sister. My friend V sent over a bottle of champagne and some comped starters. The manager gave me a hug and a kiss. I felt special.

I like feeling special.

I guess now it's time to get my PhD.

One of my best friends from high school, Phil, took it upon himself to scan the letters I wrote him during the spring & summer of 1993. They were printed out on a dot matrix printer, for god's sake. DOT MATRIX. I doodled all over them, and the missives were full of teen angst and my scathing observations of the NYHC scene and being a 16 year old girl trying to fit in. I should print them out and then burn them. You want tortured? I'll give you motherfucking tortured.

Yesterday was good, despite a rocky start. I met up with my siblings at Macy's in Herald Square. On a Sunday. On Mother's Day. Have you ever wished desperately for a flamethrower? We stopped for tea before heading back to Forest Hills and doing a bit of shopping on Austin Street. Since I can't find any of my gym clothes or socks, I picked up some shorts, tank tops and socks at the Value Depot (I am a woman who shops at the Value Depot!) before we met up with our parents at the steak house. Everyone was in good spirits. Nobody pouted or sat under a self-induced rain cloud or threatened to leave, so I consider the evening a success. I love my family. I missed them terribly, and it's going to be hard living in LA and not being able to just call up my sister and meet her for Korean food. (sigh)

By the time I got home, almost 10pm, clutching a bag of leftover steak and baked sweet potatoes, I was exhausted. I slept like a sweaty log all night with two cats purring on my limbs.

Today's plans: go to the gym in my neighborhood. Eat said leftovers. Read. Work on screenplay. Watch some bad television. Perhaps meet up with my sister in Williamsburg to get soup dumplings for dinner, though I'm not sure if I want to torture my guts with all that sodium.

Sometimes I miss NYC. But then I remember yesterday's subway ride and how I gave up my seat to a pregnant Hasidic woman because I am not a dick and she not only didn't thank me, but she just stared at me like I called her a Nazi-lover. It's not that I expected a fawning thank you (because that would have made my motivation selfish and not selfless) but cripes, why did I feel like I did something wrong? As I stood there, trying to think through this, I watched another woman tossing the unwanted contents of her handbag out the doors of the subway, using the platform as her own personal trash bin. Where's that flamethrower?

Oh, because I'm a masochist, I decided to start a course of retin-A (you can buy a tube of tretinoin online for about 20$). "But you don't have any acne or wrinkles," everyone protested. Well duh, I just like to see what happens. I need to stop treating my body like a petri dish simply because I'm bored. You know what happens when you do that? You get a big ole zit on your cheek is what.

I came to realize that my daily routine is pretty much still the same no matter where I live, so why not do it where the man I love is, and have a whole lot of warm, sunny days to boot?

It's been a generally uneventful few days, other than going to therapy (which wasn't even that interesting). P & I went to see my friend Sue's show at the UCB the other night after I made an impromptu baked curried chicken dinner, and afterwards, we went to Birds (an eatery in Franklin Village replete with hipsters, frat boys & UCB show ticket holders) and ate more chicken. Theirs was a lot drier than mine. I also had some steamed vegetables.

Good fucking god, I have become a person who eats a lot of chicken.

Like, last night, we went to dinner with Jen & Josh at Bandera in Santa Monica (basically a non-offensive, fairly expensive place for yuppies and parents with precocious children in prep schools to eat) and while I ordered the tri tip steak with caesar salad, I wound up eating most of Jen's baked chicken because I am a person who eats a lot of fucking chicken.

Before this trip to LA, I rarely ate goddamn chicken. RARELY, motherfuckers. And here I am now, eating chicken like 4x a week and turning down offers to order in Indian food or Mexican food because "I need to eat clean" which is something only weirdo obsessive bodybuilders say. Which is something else I've apparently become, only I'm not quite muscle-d enough to say this without people laughing at me.

So, have you any interesting recipes for chicken? I eat the skin, because while I am protein obsessed, I am still Chinese and cannot refuse a crispy slab of chicken skin crackling beneath my teeth. Every week I poach two huge chicken breasts for chicken salad so P can gorge himself during the week on the stuff.

I am now also someone who writes about chicken.

Wait, here's something of interest: I purchased Tatum O'Neal's autobiography, A Paper Life.

Wait, no, that's not interesting at all.

Carry on. I'm going to marinate some chicken for dinner. Tonight's version will include mustard & thyme, and I'll serve it alongside a raw Brussels sprout salad.

Cripes, I am boring.

So far I have eaten the planet, should the planet consist entirely of:

- cauliflower purée (I made last night for dinner)
- raw brussels sprouts salad (I made last night for dinner)
- cold filet mignon (we made last night for dinner)
- black forest ham
- chicken salad (I made the other day for P)

Last night I drank two glasses of wine. It was my first alcohol in two weeks. I woke up really thirsty, brain slightly fogged. I dreamed I was back in high school and didn't fail any classes before graduation.

There's a huge pile of garlicky pasta e fagioli chilling in the fridge that our neighbor made us, and it's so heavy & rich that I can eat maybe three or five bites before getting burpy & bloated. Delicious but I don't think I can eat like that anymore.

Today's plans include going to the gym (it's lower body day, meaning SQUATS!!!) and possibly dinner with my pal Bill at Jitlada. P and I haven't been since February 14th when our dinner was hilariously mediocre. We sat there for a good twenty minutes waiting for the server to bring us a wine key, and as you know, after a good emotional row, you need booze. (Doesn't every couple fight on Valentine's Day?)

Hey, it's Friday the 13th and it's pouring in LA.

But if you spend most of your time in an area where there are, at best, two seasons, there's no such thing as winter.

I've been hobbling around like "Tiny Tim" after four sets of squats the other day. My quads are shredded but in the best possible way. All the upper body work is resulting in a markedly improved posture - no more slumping! I stand up straight now. I can see definition in my abdomen.

Less booze, minimal dining out (save for our weekly trips to Pho 87) and I feel fine. Better than fine, even.

Today is cardio + back & chest. I haven't done bench presses in over a decade but I think today will be the day I return to those. As much as I love cable crosses, chest presses are the upper body version of squats. In my mid 20s, I was so addicted to doing them that my then-boyfriend mournfully murmured, "Honey? Can you cut back on the chest presses? You don't have breasts anymore - you have pecs." I, of course, was chuffed, but he was not.

Hello, welcome to my boring journal about going to the gym.

Tonight I think I will make a fresh tomato sauce and then use it in pastafurno (a baked penne dish that has peas, fresh basil, ricotta and hardboiled eggs).

Hello, welcome to my boring journal about cooking.

Hello, welcome to my boring life.
I like it.

1. I had 1.5 glasses of wine while at dinner last night. Also, I ordered a salad.
2. Robbie Williams and his wife are with baby.

After a week of not drinking, I suggested that we crack open a bottle of something or other that we had on the counter. Three glasses of wine later, I woke up the next day feeling god awful and cranky. Combined with PMS, it was a miracle that I did not stab anyone, or get stabbed myself. A trip to Pho 87 smoothed out the edges though - how can pho not fix everything?

Dear stupid: you aren't used to drinking a lot anymore. You go to the gym 3-4x a week. You work out and eat generally healthily, especially when you cook. Please stop torturing your body and then wondering why you feel awful, OK?

Duh.

Tonight I'm making a lasagna with a sauce from scratch, roasted garlic, fresh spinach and sun-dried tomatoes. If it isn't absolutely horrible, then I'll recreate it this weekend for an early Easter dinner with P's family. Saturday I made a baked chicken dish that went over extremely well: marinated with Dijon, mayo, thyme, salt, pepper and fresh lemon juice before a trip to the oven, served over Israeli couscous "confetti" style with red & jalapeno peppers.

The three back-to-back courses of antibiotics are finished. Of course, my body decided to promptly start menstruating the next day.

I swear, 75% of this journal is about my menstrual cycle. 15% is about food. That leaves 10% about general whinging.

I am not as interesting as I think I am.

Unfortunately, so does my urethra. Thanks for getting another UTI, body. That was me, at the walk-in clinic of Hollywood yesterday, crossing and uncrossing my legs anxiously, trying not to pee blood all over myself in the reception area as I waited for the doctor to see me. Once again, I am on Cipro, this time a five day course. Fine, I appreciate the nausea and loss of appetite. It really accentuates the fact that I had nothing but the majority of a bottle of wine for dinner last night. Peter made me eat some leftover aloo paratha from the awesome although incendiary Indian joint we ordered from Saturday evening to soak up the tempranillo.

(Note to self: no more bottles of wine for dinner)

After the impromptu doctor visit we decided to napalm whatever's left of my internal organs with some pho doused in a shit ton of sriracha and sambal. My asshole hates me.

I need a nap but first, research. By "research" I mean I have to watch "CSI:Miami."

Because the reality show thing has turned out to be such a pain in the ass, and because I'm not getting any compensation, I decided I didn't want to film a follow-up in mid-March because 1. it's not worth my time 2. I'll be in LA 3. I don't want to pay for the lessons I need to pass the follow-up. These people set me up to fail initially for the sake of laughs. They threatened me with scrapping all the footage. I said, "That's a shame, but I can't change my plans." More like, "I don't want to change my plans," but same difference. If they want to get rid of all the footage, that's their problem. I don't want to be on television anyway. Not anymore.

I'm still snuffling so no gym for me. Boo. Sorry, but there shall be no spreading of my world-class cooties.